Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2002

Abstract

Externalism holds that the individuation of mental content depends on factors external to the subject. This doctrine appears to undermine both the claim that there is a priori self-knowledge, and the view that individuals have privileged access to their thoughts. Tyler Burge’s influential inclusion theory of self-knowledge purports to reconcile externalism with authoritative self-knowledge. I first consider Paul Boghossian’s claim that the inclusion theory is internally inconsistent. I reject one line of response to this charge, but I endorse another. I next suggest, however, that the inclusion theory has little explanatory value.

Comments

This paper appears in Erkentnnis 56 (2002): 297-317. The published version can be found

online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/pp7alq1al44qjtuj/fulltext.pdf.


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